Learning To Swim
by Victoria May
Summary: Simon ponders Blair's sudden decision to be alone and 'process'


Learning To Swim  
By: Victoria May  
  
Sighing loudly, I close the file that has been tormenting me for days and toss it onto the desk. I watch as it slides across the gray surface and tumbles over the side-papers spilling out in a billow across the floor. Damn, just another bright spot to an already horrible day. I massage the spot right between my eyes, where I can feel pain building and spreading. Deciding I need a break, I get up and, ignoring the cascade of papers littering the floor, I walk to the window overlooking the bullpen.   
  
Brown is yapping at Gates from forensics, waving a handful of papers around. Not a pretty sight. That man can be a holy terror when he tries. Thank god he's usually mild mannered and friendly. One Ellison is enough, thank you. I can see the lines of frustration marring my detective's face. I can commiserate with him, as I spent half of my morning on the phone with the chief, assuring him that we would have the Henderson case wrapped up in a pretty pink bow a.s.a.p. I was lying. I knew it, the chief knew it, but somehow the words were enough to keep us both sane. I'm sure that somewhere, high above, there was an even greater force breathing down the chief's neck, in turn causing him to breath down mine. I resist the urge the bellow Brown's name, refusing to share the brunt of my morning with the man who was working round the clock to wrap up the case. Besides, it looks like Brown is doing a good enough job spreading the misery if the look on Gates' face is anything to go by.   
  
I tear my eyes from that drama and they catch on Detective Rafe as he sidles through the door, doing his best to look invisible. Not easy considering the man is almost as tall as Ellison, and wears tailor made suits that scream 'look at me!' But that's Rafe. We've all got a statement to make. I've been heckled a time or two myself for my own particular sense of style. After all, I'm no slouch in the fashion department. I almost chuckle as Brown catches sight of Rafe and waves him over. The instant slump to Rafe's shoulders show what he thinks of the summons, and the almost giddy grin on Gates' face as he shimmies away is comedic. Someone needs to make a TV show of these guys, 'Police Academy Redux: Welcome to the Bullpen.'   
  
Chuckling, my eyes roam across the bullpen once again. This time they land on Inspector Conner. Dressed in what can only be described as the tackiest dress suit ever created, Conner amazingly pulls if off. A bright yellow jacket over a white tee-shirt with large, florescent flowers on her chest and a gaudy skirt with large orange, pink and trace of yellow roses splattered across it like a paint store blew up with her in it. I haven't seen anything this-loud, since that god-awful jacket she was wearing when Jim, Sandburg and I picked her up from the airport. I knew right then the woman was hell on wheels. Perfect for Major Crimes, but I will never admit that to her. Amazingly, she melted right into the mix, like she was born to be here.   
  
My eyes drift to Jim, sitting alone at his desk, typing diligently at some report. The desk next to his is empty. His partner's desk. Sandburg's desk. Jim looks up and catches my eye. Giving me a small grin, he raises his eyebrow as if to ask 'Do you need me sir?' I shake my head infinitesimally and he shrugs, turning back to his computer. Jim looks good. He hasn't looked this good since he finally pulled himself together after Jack's death. It was like, at the time, he finally decided to grow up and quit punishing the rest of us for the shit life threw at him. He got rid of the rags he wore for shirts, replaced the jeans with trousers, shaved off the caterpillar that crawled onto his chin and died and ditched the earring.   
  
I'd once worried that Jim was reverting back to that pre-civilized version of my detective, when he landed the switchman case. He'd hide out in the bushes lying in wait for the bomber, rarely coming into the station. He'd check in via his cell-phone and I would get all sorts of reports from the swat team I had stationed with him on a rotating basis. They'd all thought he'd fallen off his rocker. I wouldn't even entertain that thought. I figured, hell, if I denied it enough, it wasn't happening. But when he slumped into my office, looking like the biggest piece of crap I'd ever laid eyes on, I was forced to consider the possibility that my best detective had come to the end of a short, but glorious career.   
  
Enter Sandburg, stage left. It was then that I finally believed Jim was truly out for the count. Coming in here with this hyper little grad student spouting off textbook crap about thin blue lines, hair sticking off every which way. He looked worse than Jim. I thought maybe Jim had gone slumming and found the punk in some sleazy dive someplace and got taken for a ride. I didn't buy that line about his mother calling and asking him for a favor-hell, how stupid did he think I was? I knew his mother wasn't around. You don't make Captain with shit for brains. But I played along and humored him. I figured, if it makes him happy, maybe he'll snap out of the fugue he seemed to be in. And sure enough, he did.   
  
I still wasn't convinced that he needed some hairy little brain hanging around though. Even after Jim let me in on the big secret. Super human senses. Seeing things no one can see, hearing things no one else can hear. Not to mention tasting, touching and smelling things I would rather not get into. But Sandburg was tenacious, like a yapping little dog, trailing along at Ellison's heel. I almost felt bad for the kid-Ellison isn't exactly a teddy bear. But Sandburg stuck it out, wormed his way in deeper than any one dared. No matter how many times I tried to convince Jim to cut him lose, he would just shake his head and say he needed him. So Blair stayed.   
  
I don't know what it is about those two, but they're like an old married couple. They snipe and bicker and throw snits, then suddenly, they're hugging and touching and patting. They're best friends-don't ask how that happened. Best friends, but more-brothers. Soul mates. And no, they're not having a torrid affair. I asked. I mean, a captain's got to know these things, right? But all that talk about spirit animals and spirit guides, sentinels and shamans. That's, well, that's just beyond your run of the mill friendship. Deeper than even the tightest partnership on the force. Next to their own that is.   
  
But it's no wonder, all that those two have been through together. I still don't know how Sandburg wrangled his way into Jim's loft. But he did, and he stayed. At least, until that one rather large bump in the road named Alex Barnes. But even the whole mess with the dissertation being released prematurely didn't force a repeat of that mistake.   
  
Thinking back over the years, I'm amazed at how tight the team of Ellison and Sandburg still are. After everything the two have gone through together-testing their friendship, their commitment. From day one, these two were destined for the rocky road, with bumps and twists and potholes galore. From a barbary ape destroying the loft, not once but twice, to that psycho David Lash nearly making Blair his final victim.   
  
I don't know if Jim even realizes how much Sandburg gave up for him. Not just his career, millions of dollars and a Nobel Prize, but everything that came before that. He gave up his innocence. He surrendered some of his basic morals, like carrying a gun. He gave up his identity-although I doubt Blair would agree with me there. He would probably just say he adapted to his new environment. He definitely fits in better with his curly locks cut short and close to his head. And although Blair doesn't mention it, I'm pretty sure he gave up something even more precious to him-his mother. Oh sure, he still talks about what retreat she's on now, who she's dating and all that. But there's something missing during those conversations. Something vital. I don't think his mother abandoned him-Naomi would never do that. But I do think she finally realized that her baby doesn't need her to protect him. He's got his blessed protector. So I don't get the irate phone calls telling me how fragile her baby is and I'm pretty sure Blair hasn't seen his mother since we offered him the badge.   
  
I look over at the empty desk and shake my head. I really wonder how those two have made it this far together. Hell, half the time they're not even on the same page. Like today, for instance. Blair comes straggling in after Jim but makes a beeline for me and my office. Jim let him go and got busy at his desk. Blair, giving me the quick courtesy knock I have finally taught him, ducks into my office and begins a long and rambling rant about needing the day off because his friend just offered up his cabin for the weekend and it takes almost an entire day to drive there, and he hasn't asked for a day off yet. He knows I know that he has a point, and that all his cases are wrapped up in nice, tidy little packages. There's really no reason for me to say no. I asked if Jim was going with him, and he looked at me like one would look at a small child.   
  
' Simon,' he said. '*I* want the day off. *I'm* going to my friend's cabin. Jim isn't attached to my hip you know.'   
  
I almost spit out my coffee right then. Now, that was an image that had never even entered my brain. Sandburg attached to Ellison with chains and locks and duck tape, yes, but Jim attached to Blair? I just hadn't ever thought of it that way. But the boy had a point. I pressed and asked if the two of them had a fight, if I should be worried. Would Jim's senses be all right with Blair gone? He assured me that the two were just fine, that he just needed some time by himself to 'process' everything that's happened.   
  
Now that scared me. After all this time, months at the academy, months in the field with Jim, and now he has to process. And the fact that Jim wasn't there with him in my office scared me even more. It was too reminiscent of everything that had ever led up to the shit hitting the fan-pardon the cliché. I had no choice-I'm not his parent, I'm his boss and short of making something up, I had no reason to deny him his request. So I wished him well, told him I wanted him to check in with me as soon as he returned and watched him gather his jacket, chat with Jim for a few minutes and then wander out of the bullpen.   
  
I'm wondering what triggered this sudden need to 'process'. He was fine yesterday. Or at least, he seemed fine. I glance at Jim again. He looks relaxed, not like someone who just had a knock down, blow out fight with his roommate and partner. Guiltily, I realize I can't find anything else to blame the kid's sudden mood swing on. His social life hasn't exactly caught up to where it was before he joined the force. Before-just before. Maybe Naomi called-laid some bad news on him. Or maybe he's just in a pissy mood. It happens to the best of us.   
  
Or maybe he wants out. Maybe he realized he made a huge mistake and is trying to figure out what to do now. Maybe he thinks he's trapped in this life now that he's in it. He could be miserable and hiding it so as not to disappoint the rest of us. After all, we were so proud of ourselves for offering him an option. He didn't exactly have any at the time. Not after he tore his own reputation to shreds and on national TV at that.   
  
I shudder at the thought of the kid huddling somewhere alone, in full blown depression trying to figure out how to escape the hell he's in. I know; I'm being dramatic. But I don't think the kid's as stable as everyone gives him credit for. Sure, he handled the transition into full time police work like a professional. He was even giddy about it. But when a drowning man is tossed a life preserver, he's not going to snub it and find something that suits his tastes better. He's going to grab it and hold onto it like it's an extension of himself.   
  
And that's what Blair was. A man, drowning in a sea of accusation and hate. Everything that had ever meant anything to him was crumbling around him. When you spend you entire life preparing to be something, you don't exactly pause to consider other options. So when Blair's chosen career of anthropologist and teacher was snatched away, he grabbed greedily to the next best thing-the only other thing attainable. A badge.   
  
Oh, he was grateful and enthusiastic and put everything he had into the academy. He was the model student. He even became a crack shot, citing the need to protect his partner now that he was a 'real cop'. The way he stressed those words, so proud to finally be included in the brotherhood he'd felt he'd only seen the essence of as an observer. He was like an orphan, finally adopted into the family he'd always wanted.   
  
It kills me to see him chip away little pieces of himself so he fits in better. Long gone are the big words and rambling explanations that came with Blair the observer. In their place are short, concise and to the point explanations-easy for everyone to understand. Oh sure, it was only natural. While my men are educated-the cream of the crop, they don't read professional journals and they've never, ever been published.   
  
I'm wondering now if Blair is finally beginning to tread water, or maybe he's past that. Maybe he's learning to swim. Has he finally seen that he doesn't need the life preserver any longer? Has one more suitable to his needs floated within eyesight? I wouldn't blame him if he decided to move on. I'm just glad we were able to keep him from drowning.   
  
Pacing back and forth, I mull over these thoughts. I feel as though I need to tell Blair-make him realize he owes us nothing. I was glad to be the one to throw out that life preserver and I'll be even happier if he's finally learned to swim. Making up my mind, I yank open my door and bellow for Ellison. I wait until he is settling into a chair before I shut the door and turn to face him.  
  
"You know where Sandburg is, right?" I ask as I pull out a cigar and hold it under my nose.  
  
Crinkling his eyes suspiciously, Jim answers, "Of course. He gave me the directions in case something happened. Why? What are you up to Simon?" he questions.  
  
"Me?" I ask innocently. "I just feel like a breath of fresh air. You know-get away from it all for awhile. I haven't been hiking in forever."  
  
Jim pushes himself out of his chair and walks over to the window. He looks out over the city with a thoughtful expression on his face before turning back to face me. "He said he wanted to be alone Simon. You know-process."  
  
"Come on Jim," I wheedle. "If he really wanted to be alone, he wouldn't have given you the directions-right?" I realize I'm using the same line on him that I used on Blair before we followed Jim up to Clayton Falls. I guess history really does repeat itself.   
  
"I don't know Simon," Jim begins, but I hold up my hand.   
  
"Nn! Decision made. I'm your captain and I say we go. I mean, come on, this is Sandburg we're talking about. How mad will he be?" I laugh at the frightened look on Jim's face. Patting him on the shoulder, I call Joel and ask him to cover for me.   
  
An hour later, we're in Jim's truck and on the road. I lean back in my seat with my unlit cigar between my teeth. I stretch and smile at Jim's glare. Ah, it's good to be captain. 


End file.
